To fully understand
the reasons for the growing campaign of boycott of Israeli
institutions, as well as my own position, it helps to know
something about the history of the conflict. You might like
to consult some sources by renowned Israeli scholars, for
example Ilan Pappe's The
Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians (Routledge, 2006),
and Jewish activists, for example The
Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict, by Jews for
Justice in the Middle East. See also the website of Uri Davis, renowned Israeli activist and author of numerous books on Israel.

To understand
the nature of the horror to which the current boycott campaign
is responding, please look at some of the photographs
recently taken by a chest doctor in Palestine (British doctors
are currently campaigning to have the Israeli Medical Association
expelled from the World Medical Association). Scroll down
the page and ask yourself if any decent human being can
possibly justify these atrocities or would wish to campaign
against anyone trying to do something about them through
non-violent means, even if they do not fully agree with
some aspects of the boycott. You might also wish to read
this report by Brian Johnston,
a member of a group from Pittsburgh who visited Palestine
in August 2007.

To understand the rationale for the
boycott campaign, and access a set of links to various initiatives,
click here.

To understand my own rationale concerning
the distinction between institutions and individuals, click
here.

If you are particularly
interested in minorities such as Deaf children, click here
for an example of what they are suffering in this context.

History
of my own involvement in the boycott campaign

In
May 2002, following the sharp rise in the level of atrocities
committed against the Palestinian population in the West
Bank and Gaza, I decided to join the call to boycott Israeli
academic institutions. The boycott was conceived along the
same lines as the sanctions which ultimately led to the
collapse of the apartheid regime in South Africa. The call
was initiated by Professor Steven Rose (Physics, Open University)
and Professor Hilary Rose (Bradford University). The most
extensive overview of the boycott to date was published
in The Guardian in December 2002, under the title Its
water on stone.

There followed a barrage of hate mail (now a common
tactic of the Zionist lobby)  some of it explicitly
condoned by supposedly reputable institutions such as the
University
of Pennsylvania. When this failed to force me to abandon
the boycott, more vitriolic attacks soon followed, from
all quarters: individuals within and outside translation
studies, professional and academic organizations, and from
politicians in Britain, most notably an Early
Day Motion passed in Parliament, public condemnations
by various politicians, as well as pressure
from the Prime Minister himself on my employer to dismiss
me!! If only our colleagues and politicians could find the
energy to express such outrage at the atrocities committed
against defenceless populations in various parts of the
world on a daily basis.

I have tried to explain my rationale for boycotting Israeli
institutions in a number of public statements, the most
relevant of which are the Editorial
Statement in volume 8, No. 2 of The Translator
(November 2002), an interview
in Al-Ahram Weekly (January 2003), and an open
letter circulated in January 2003. I also spent a considerable
amount of time and effort trying to explain to my colleagues
in translation studies why Israel's continued persecution
of the Palestinians justifies relatively extreme measures
such as academic and cultural boycotts (for a small sample
of this effort, see my letter
to various members of the translation studies community
on 11 June 2002). This time, very few of us will be able
to hide behind the standard excuse of 'we didn't know'!

These documents, together with the material available on
this site, should be sufficient to clarify my position to
anyone interested in listening.